Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/92

80 everything without fail that Chrysostom has ordered; and the whole village is in an uproar about it. But it is believed, that everything, at last, will be done according to the desire of Ambrosio, and all the rest of the shepherds, his friends; and that to-morrow he will be interred with great pomp in the very spot I have mentioned. I am resolved, therefore, as it will be a thing well worth seeing, to go thither without fail, even though I thought I should not be able to return to the village that night." "We will do so too," replied the goatherds, "and cast lots to see which of us must stay and take care of our flocks." "You are in the right, Pedro," said one, "but, there will be no occasion to use that shift; for I myself will stay and take care of the whole, and you must not impute my tarrying to virtue, or the want of curiosity, but to the plaguy thorn that ran into my foot the other day, and hinders me from walking." "We are obliged to thee, however," answered Pedro, whom Don Quixote desired to tell him who that same dead shepherd and living shepherdess were.

To this question the goatherd replied, "All that he knew of the matter was, that the deceased was the son of a rich farmer, who lived in the neighbourhood of a village in these mountains; that he had studied in Salamanca many years, at the end of which he had returned to his family with the character of a great scholar; in particular, they said, he was very knowing in the science of the stars, and what passed betwixt the sun and moon, and the heavens; for, he had punctually foretold the clipse of them both!" "The obscuration of those two great luminaries," said the knight, "is called the eclipse, and not the clipse, friend." But Pedro, without